Josep Pons conducts the Poulenc Stabat Mater and the Fauré Requiem

With Patricia Petibon, Matthias Goerne, the Orfeón Donostiarra de San Sebastián Choir and the Orchestre national de Lyon

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Two masterpieces from the French 20th century, conducted by Josep Pons.

The music director of the Spanish National Orchestra since 2003, Josep Pons has regularly been invited by the Orchestre national de Lyon (for which he conducted last year a Bizet-Ravel-Stravinsky concert featuring Mireille Delunsch, an event broadcast live on medici.tv). On January 27, he performs again on the stage of the Auditorium de Lyon in the impressive Fauré Requiem, featuring the soprano Patricia Petibon and the baritone Matthias Goerne as soloists. And Josep Pons did not come alone: he brought with him the Orfeón Donostiarra Choir from Spain, one of the world's leading vocal ensembles, which has already collaborated with the orchestra itself.

Composed in 1950, the Poulenc Stabat Mater was written after the death of Christian Jacques Bérard – a paintor and a close friend of the composer. It depth, its darkness and the pain it evoques are absolutely unique in Poulenc's works. Orchestrated for a solo soprano voice, the story of the Mother standing there, in pain is sung by Patricia Petibon.

The Fauré Messa da Requiem however is probably one of the best-known and the most often performed works of all the French repertoire. Its Pie Jesu, here sung by Patricia Petibon (but sometimes sung by children voices), was said by Debussy to be "the one and only Pie Jesu, just like Mozart's Ave verum is the one and only Ave verum." Note that for the creation of its definitive version, a night of the year 1900, the organ used was the one which now stands in the Auditorium de Lyon.

Patricia Petibon released in 2011 on the Deutsche Grammophon label an album of Spanish arias, called Melancolia, recorded with the Orquesta Nacional de España under the baton of Josep Pons.